New Heirlooms in 4.3

01Sep

In Patch 4.3 the Darkmoon Faire is going to get a nice little revamp (details here). I’ve never been too big on the faire beyond abusing the vendors there to get high selling mats for cheap vendor prices that I could toss on the AH for a quick, easy profit. My lack of interest almost made me ignore the information regarding the faire, but I was bored anyway (and about to leave work for the day) so I figured I might as well take a look.

Most of what the notes mentioned weren’t bad, but nothing that would get me otherwise interested in the DMF, until I stumbled onto this:

“We have adorable companion pets inludin’ a fez-wearing monkey, a plethora of profession recipes, toys, balloons, souvenirs, delectable carnival snacks and beverages, heirlooms for the little ones, and even replicas of long-lost suits of armor that we’re offering for your Transmogrification needs.”

Unfortunately for us, there’s no more mention of heirlooms in the article, so we don’t know for sure what it refers to. It could be new heirlooms, it could be existing heirlooms, or it could be other items all together that they simply used the word to describe. Without the details, one can only hope and imagine.

But wait… we do have details!

Not details about the DMF, but of heirlooms that have been sitting in the PTR database for over 8 months now. Heirloom Legs and Heirloom Rings, to be exact. I’ll throw out the disclaimer here, just in case you didn’t read the rest of this post: The heirlooms I’m about to mention have not been confirmed for patch 4.3 as of the writing of this post.

Heirloom Rings
There are four new heirloom rings in the Wowhead database that do not currently exist in the game. Each of these four puts the existing Dread Pirate Ring (DPR) to shame. So much so, in fact, that if you have access to any of these they will be better than the DPR even if you only have Strength rings and you’re playing a Mage.

I would like to see the DPR get an upgrade when/if these four do become available because of how much weaker it is in comparison. Whether or not they’ll do so remains to be seen, though I kind of doubt that they’ll change anything about it at all given that it’s from a previous expansion and an upgrade isn’t necessarily…well, necessary.

The important thing to note about these rings is that all of them are Unique-Equip, so you can’t wear two of the same ring. That’s not much of a problem for Strength-based melee classes since there are two Strength rings, and Agility-based classes aren’t too bad off since they can get at least some benefit from the Strength (Hunters less than others, of course). Casters get the short end here with only one ring that grants caster stats (sorry Healers, no Spirit here at all), so a second heirloom ring only benefits you so far as the secondary stats and stamina bonus are concerned.

Strength-based melee classes will want both the Antique and Burnished rings. Agility-based melee will want the Ornate and Antique rings. Hunters will want either the Ornate and Antique (Hit/Crit) or the Ornate and Gleaming (Crit/Haste) rings, but I’m not familiar enough with the Hunter to tell you exactly which one is better. All casters will want to use the Gleaming ring and either the Ornate (Crit/Haste) or Antique (Hit/Crit) depending on which secondary stats are more beneficial for their given class and spec.

Ring Enchants
There are a total of seven enchants that you can put on these heirlooms, and all of them require the character wearing the ring(s) to have the Enchanting skill and a skill level high enough to cast the enchant themselves (even if they don’t have the pattern themselves). Three of the enchants can be used with a skill level of 400, and the other four require 475.

The numbers in parenthesis below represent the Enchanting skill level required to activate the enchant.

Of the options available, you’ll get more use out of the first three options simply because of how many levels you can make use of them compared to the other four. As far as stats are concerned, the last four are definitely the more beneficial option as they’re roughly twice as good as the others.

Personally, I’d go with Greater Spellpower for the caster ring, and +40 Attack Power for all of the others. I would consider +30 Stamina for the tanking ring, though I’d probably stick with the attack power as I don’t often find Stamina to be high on my priority list while leveling.

Heirloom Legs
There are seven heirloom legs in the database, and up to this point we’ve had none. Legs can sometimes be a pretty hard slot to find upgrades for, so I’m pretty happy to see this slot get heirlooms. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve been to Outlands while still wearing level 20-30 legs.

There are Leg options for every class and spec. The stats that they offer follow the same pattern we’ve seen in the other armor heirlooms up to this point, so you’ll find that some pieces might not have the perfect stats for you but you’ll at least be able to find something that works well enough.

Leg Enchants
There are a lot of options for leg enchants. The main question you have to ask yourself when deciding which you want to use is at which level you want to benefit from an enchant. The higher the level requirement, the larger the stat benefit (as you would expect), but of course the fewer levels you get to benefit from it.

If you’d like to take a look at the enchants available as a search, you can follow this link: Link. Just make sure there’s something inside that Source column, as those without a source are ones which can no longer be obtained. If you happen to have made/obtained some of those enchants back in the day when they were available then you can still use them, but I don’t expect many people at all to still have them sitting around (unless you’re an old school twink player). Also note that there are a few leg enchants that require an item level instead of, or in addition to, a character level and none of those can be used at all since heirlooms are considered item level 1.

In the list below, the number in (parenthesis) is the player level required to use the enchant. Rather than putting a full list here, I’ve gone through and listed the ones I’d particularly consider for my own heirloom legs. I’ve also categorized them by the types of bonuses that they give.

These will likely be the easiest for you to obtain as well as the cheapest. They all provide a decent bonus for their level range even if they’re not that impressive overall. If you’re planning to use them on low level twinks then only the Medium Armor Kit is useful to you, but if you’re going to level characters with them then you’re better off going for the Heavy Borean or Heavy Savage armor kits. If you really like PvP, then the level 80 Earthen Leg Armor is for you.

Personally, if I were going to choose between just these, I’d go for the Heavy Borean Armor Kit so that I could benefit from the enchant for 15 levels. However, I’d still prefer to pick an option that’s more class-specific from the lists below than any of these. But that’s because I’m a crazy min/maxing fool, and overall none of these bonuses are high enough for me to care about using them.

For your melee classes, I would lean towards the Attack Power/Crit options over the Agility/Stamina. The main reason for that is that Stamina isn’t that big of a deal for leveling, and the amount of AP you get from the Agility doesn’t match the amount given from the other options of the same level. If you choose to go for one of the level 80 enchants, then I might change my mind and go for the Agility instead (for Hunters, Rogues, and Shaman) since the stat does offer more than just attack power, but otherwise I’d stick to AP.

My personal preference for these would be Cobrahide, Nethercobra, or Nerubian; in that order. The difference between those three isn’t all that big, and there’s a 10 level difference between each of them. I’d lean more towards an enchant that gave me 35 levels worth of benefit over one that gave me only 15 levels worth and only 15 more Attack Power.

The tanking enchants are available if you really want them. Personally, I’d just go for a melee enchant instead since the amount of Dodge on these things is so small. If you want survivability then go for one that offers Agility, otherwise stick to the AP/Crit options as I suggested for other melee classes. The only thing the AP/Crit gives you as a tank is better threat generation and easier solo play which may or may not be appealing to you.

Personally, I won’t bother with either of these for my tanks. I’d suggest you go with the melee enchants I listed above.

There are quite a few caster leg enchants available to you, though some of them require various reputation grinds to get their patterns (if you don’t already have them). There are also some Tailor-specific spellthreads that I have listed down below in case you’d like to consider those. If you like your casters to be tailors, then I’d definitely consider at least looking at them. Otherwise you’ve got plenty of options here.

Much like the melee enchants above, I would lean towards the level 50 versions myself for the sake of getting 35 levels worth of benefit from the enchant. In order of preference, I’d go Mystic/Silver, Golden/Runic, and then Brilliant. The one benefit of Brilliant over the others is that it gives Spirit rather than Stamina which is more appealing in my opinion (even for casters that get no benefit from Spirit beyond passive mana regen).

The tailor’s special spellthreads are quite good. While the Rank 2 versions are significantly more powerful than the Rank 1’s, I would still lean towards the Rank 1’s myself because of how much Frostweave it takes you to level from the 405 mark for Rank 1 to the 475 mark for the Rank 2. That’s a lot of cloth to farm for an upgraded enchant that you can only use for 11 levels. Especially for someone like me who rolls a lot of alts, as I’d have to level tailoring on every one of them if I wanted to benefit from these. If you’re an altoholic, these enchants probably aren’t the best option for you.

So my preference, if I was going to use any of these, would be Sanctified 1, Master’s 1, Sanctified 2. Personally, I roll too many alts to seriously consider any of these when other options exist that don’t force me into a specific profession to use them. Rings don’t have any non-Enchanter options so it’s either those or bust, but there are way too many leg enchants available for me to really consider these worth it.

Heirlooms Guide
If these heirlooms do end up confirmed for patch 4.3, then I will update my Guide to Heirlooms to include which rings, legs, and respective enchants that I would suggest for each class and spec just as I’ve done with all of the other heirlooms to date.

I would also like to take a moment to thank all of those who have sent me emails or who have left comments regarding how useful they’ve found the various guides that I’ve written here. The Guide to Heirlooms post has consistently been my most frequently visited post since just a few days after I wrote it, and I’ve gotten more emails from readers about that post than any other. So thank you, one and all.

Items have been labeled like that for awhile now. Blizzard has stated for awhile now that they really want us to be able to send items cross-server, but I guess due to the way servers are setup that’s not possible.

I think they should just change the system – if you roll a new character on a new server ALL Your heirlooms get mailed to you.

(Ie you buy it on your main, then when you roll a new char they’ll be in your mail). The problem of course is that you can’t enchant them. But I’m sure that’s a concession most people would be willing to take.

I could handle getting heirlooms in the mail just like we do the account bound pets. There’s nothing stopping you from enchanting them, the enchants just wouldn’t be on every copy of it. I don’t mind farming mats to enchant 18 copies of the same item if that’s what I need to do to have access across the board.

I’d like to see an account wide storage system for heirlooms, though having them all waiting for you in the mail when you create the character would be fine with me as well. The storage system would allow me to enchant once and not have to worry about it anymore, while the mail system would allow me to use different enchants on different toons to maximize the enchant without having to go with something generic. For example, I’d love to use an Iron Counterweight or +25 Agility on my axe so that my Hunter can benefit from it, but it doesn’t make sense for me to remove Crusader to do that when I also use it on so many melee characters who wouldn’t benefit from the IC or Agility enchants.

I really don’t like the idea of new heirlooms being introduced with the Faire. The leveling experience already goes by so fast, even without heirlooms. That was one thing that turned me off from leveling a new toon, to distract myself from the enjoyment that I wasn’t getting on my main. It went by too fast! My quests were gray before I was even half way done with a zone. I was being rushed to zones that I wasn’t ready to take a peek at yet. It all just felt very forced.

This was a shame because I hadn’t really seen the damaged caused by the Cataclysm and I figured leveling something from 1-60 (and maybe beyond) would let me do that. I couldn’t keep up! And that’s just from questing alone. If I wanted to do a dungeon to get better gear, I would gain levels even faster.

If anything, I think they could stand to do away with the number of heirlooms that they currently have in the game, not add more.

To get the dead horse argument out of the way, “nobody’s forcing you to wear heirlooms”. Some people love to level faster while others hate it. It’s just another matter of opinion really, and to each their own as far as I’m concerned.

I have been surprised though at just how many people I’ve seen, especially since Cataclysm, that feel the same as you. I love leveling, it’s what I spend most of my time doing in game. I don’t mind that I level fast, nor do I really mind when I’m leveling slowly.

What is the real solution to this problem, though? I don’t think removing heirlooms does anything to address the issue. If that’s the fix, then simply not wearing them is your answer. What about instead of heirlooms that provide an experience increase, they make another set that’s exactly the same except that they remove 5-10% of your experience instead? Do you think that it would provide the effect you’re looking for, or would you feel like wearing gear that intentionally hurts your progression would not be worth it?

I agree that nobody forces anyone to wear heirlooms. Notice the number of “I’s” that I included in my original response to you, Psyn.

;)

I think there’s a difference between leveling quickly, which many people have as a natural skill at and then leveling so fast that it’s a blur and you can’t keep up with it. You can still level quickly (or you could) without having to skip entire zones, not because you want to but because the quests have gone gray for you. I think it might be the lack of choice in the matter that turned me off. I feel like I don’t have a say in it. The game has pushed me in that direction.

I admit that I don’t have a solution for the problem. I admit that guild perks probably don’t help and that speeds up the process of leveling, even if you didn’t have heirlooms. I’m not opposed to gear that gets better as you level. I just don’t see the need for the experience bonus, in the current state of things and for it to stack with the guild perks and other heirloom bonuses. That to me feels excessive. They could possibly even scale down the XP you get from doing quests normally.

I’m not sure. I just know that I missed leveling and I had no desire to do it in the current state of the game, which made me quite sad.

The game isn’t forcing you to leave a zone just because quests are grey. It’s definitely pushing you, but not forcing. You can still complete that zone, and you can still get experience for those grey quests.

I’m not saying that from a “no, you’re wrong” perspective, but from a “well, have you looked at it this way?” instead. I haven’t done more than log in for 10-15 minutes staring at my screen for over 2 months now, I know what you’re talking about with how the feel of the game has changed.

I think the guild perks was a great idea, though implementation was probably not as good as it could have been. I think including an experience increase was probably a bad idea also, as it forces that experience bonus on people when some of them don’t want any part of it. More points for dungeons, raids, and PvP was a good idea along with the faster movement speeds and extra crafting/gathering and so forth.

If you are still at all interested in seeing the 1-60 zones in their new light on a character that doesn’t feel overpowered and doesn’t make you feel like you’re having to flee zones before you’re halfway through them, then you might consider one of the challenges that people have mentioned, such as our Ironman Challenge, which is intentionally nerfing yourself so that you face those zones in a more challenging way which can also make the game a bit more interesting overall.

These items have been in the game’s database since Cata hit. What I’d like to see is alternate means of obtaining the heirlooms already in the game, rather than the legs and rings. Or perhaps finally, finally an heirloom shield and some spellpower plate heirlooms. Both of those are desperately needed niches, imho, before we get new heirloom slots.

I don’t know how many more ways they can make heirlooms available to you besides offering them for gold. You can already get them for Justice, Honor, or Tournament marks. I guess they could offer them for Valor/Conquest to open up another method, but from there we’re about out of options. I would like to see the DMF provide yet another alternative to the Tournament since nobody hangs out in Northrend these days anyway, but I don’t like grinds that take forever so I probably wouldn’t make use if it anyway, personally.

I definitely agree that there needs to be 2-3 shields introduced. One for tanks and one for casters at the very least, though a healer and a dps version of the caster would of course be ideal.

There is one plate caster piece in the game right now (the PvP heirloom shoulders), so I know they’ve at least thought about it in the past. I have to wonder though if that wasn’t the test piece to see if anyone would want to buy heirlooms that have zero reusability for the majority of the player population. Unless you’re in the habit of rolling Holy Paladins one right after the other, then you’re not likely to buy this set over another unless you’re one who doesn’t like leveling and just want to get it over with asap (in which case you might as well just grab any heirlooms you can get your hands on and rush right through it).

For the sake of completion, I’d love to have plate caster pieces available, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we never see them, and I can understand that reasoning.

I don’t think it would be a replication of the existing vendors, though that’s just as much a possibility as anything else, I suppose.

I expect it will be more like the new version of the Argent Tournament, where there are a number of different dailies that you can do that will earn you a new type of currency that can only be used at the DMF. And like the tournament there will probably be various vanity pets, likely some vanity gear, possibly some actual gear, and who knows what all else. I don’t know if we’ll see mounts or not, though I would doubt we’ll see more than 1-2 if any. Certainly not as many as there were in the tournament where mounts were kind of the point of the whole thing.

While a lot of people grew to hate the tournament, there were also a lot of people who loved it and liked spending their down time there where they could piddle around doing whatever to pass the time and get some fun items out of it along the way.

With 4.3 comes Transmogrification. I read somewhere that with the Transmogrification comes some kind of void bank thing that allows you to place items in there and any character on that battle.net account can access them. Does this mean that we will finally be able to have Heirlooms cross servers?

Your preferences of stats/enchants are telling me you’re not that informed of the WoW basics. First off, levellers want stamina, plain and simple. Any levelling alt, especially when they arrive in Outland, will prefer the additional survivability over a bit more damage. As an alt, you can generally care less about topping recount charts in a random dungeon, and even then, with heirlooms, odds are you will outdps anyone else.

I would advise anyone levelling an alt, to pick survivability over damage. As a healer, you might still prefer the additional stamina, because most tanks in low level pugs are retarded, so you will be off-tanking 75% of the time.

As a tank, picking dps stats over survivability is just plain stupid, I don’t think I need to explain myself there.

You’re certainly entitled to your opinion, but I can assure you I am quite familiar with the basics of World of Warcraft.

I have to assume that you’re either replying to the wrong article, or you didn’t read this one to begin with since I have stamina enchants listed in every section up there. Or with a name like that, maybe you’re just a troll.

Regardless, I completely disagree with your desire for Stamina regardless of which article you intended to reply to, and I would argue every point you tried to make.